WH "press pool" reporter recalls the Florida classroom on 9/11/01

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http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2006/09/911_plus_five.html#more

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But not until he had settled into a seat in the gray-carpeted classroom of teacher Sandra Kay Daniels at 8:07 am CDT, with 18 second-graders seated before him, did he learn of the true impact of this incident: Then-Chief of Staff Andrew Card stepped into the classroom and whispered into Bush's ear that a second plane had struck: "America is under attack.''

For five more minutes, with the teacher tapping her pencil in rhythm for the children's measured reading, we watched – we, a small band of "pool" reporters and photographers who had accompanied the president that morning on the golf course and into the classroom – as the president gazed at us, and we at him, wondering what he knew.

"Really good readers -- whew!" said the president, maintaining a sense of decorum in that moment that many have come to question in the years since. The chaos of the scene unfolding outside that classroom, in Washington and at air bases where fighter jets were being scrambled without any idea of their destination, would much later come into sharp focus in the report of the 9/11 Commission.

As the children finished reading, they voiced the phrase: "More to come.'' The president asked, "What does that mean, more to come?" Something is going to happen, some of them replied. "That's exactly right,'' the president replied.